Firestone Tire and Service Center, an anonymously designed Streamline Moderne building servicing a countless number of Los Angeles’ cars under its sleek roofline since first opening in 1938, shut its garage doors to the public in 2016. The disused building can currently be seen partially boarded up on the corner of 8th and La Brea in Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile, eagerly awaiting a new function.
On December 6, it was announced that two companies have come together to transform the Firestone Tire building into a unique eating and drinking destination. Pouring With Heart, a local nightlife and hospitality company that operates several bars in the area, has plans to open up a brewery using 13,000 square feet of the original building’s interior, and will likely name it All Season Brewing Company. And, after demonstrating success with their restaurant sited in Downtown Los Angeles, Chicas Tacos has agreed to take over the remaining floor area of the building.
The decision to adaptively reuse a building from the city’s early days of automobile servicing has become a common one throughout Los Angeles in the last decade. The 1972 oil crisis led to the closure and/or demolition of hundreds of gas stations and service centers throughout the city, and only a small handful of them have gained new life while holding onto their old-world charm. Gilmore Gas Station, for example, a Streamline Moderne building designed by engineer R.J. Kadow in 1935, became a drive-through Starbucks in 2015.
The Firestone Tire building project is being overseen by local interior design studio M. Winter Design and is set to be completed by early 2020. From the renderings, it appears as though the renovation will include the building’s original rooftop lettering, fluorescent lighting, baked porcelain cladding and, of course, its iconic roofline while maintaining industrial interior flourishes.
